A Brief History of the Parachute

One hundred years ago, an Army daredevil completed the first parachute jump from a plane. But the history of the chute goes all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci, and all the way up to today's advanced military air drops.

A Brief History of the Parachute

A Brief History of the Parachute

Base jumpers like Jeb Corliss have nothing on U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry (right, above). The son of a balloonist, Berry grew up jumping out of balloons and dangling from a trapeze bar suspended from a parachute, a common stunt for early 20th century daredevils. But 100 years ago, on March 1, 1912, Berry entered a class of his own when he hopped off the axle of an early Benoist pusher biplane high above a St. Louis army base, and became the first person to jump from an airplane and land by parachute.

Early parachute jumps weren't good for the jumpers' stomachs—Berry said he began to feel "uneasy" as it took the newfangled chute a good 500 feet to finally blossom open. But in the hundred years since, we've seen parachutes go from round to rectangular, develop systems of steerage and control, become an integral tool for the military (and for drag racers), and manage the descent of spacecraft onto the surfaces of other planets.

"The Father of the Parachute"

"The Father of the Parachute"

The parachute, like the helicopter and the hang glider, dates back to the drawings of mankind's greatest public genius, Leonardo da Vinci. His pyramidal "tent roof" design, sketched in the 1470s, was untested in his lifetime. But in recent years builders have actually brought this 500-year-old design to life and showed that it works.